Finding Time to Write

During the month of April, “busy” was the operative term to describe my life. In fact, “busy” is not a strong enough word to define me.

In April, I:

• edited 4 novel manuscripts and a collection of poetry
• wrote several articles for various columns
• read over 30 articles and sections of books for various academic projects
• hit crunch time for end-of-semester, where I had to produce drafts of non-profit grant proposals, business proposals, pilot studies, etc.
• racked up many hours of “bonding time” with my Usability team as we went through testing for a project that’s due soon

This list does not count for time in class, time on phone with various clients (current and potential), time conducting research for various projects (current and potential), and time on phone as sisterfriend.

Needless to say, there wasn’t a lot of time to sleep.

But there is one other thing I did in April that was probably the most rewarding: I started and completed Script Frenzy [http://scriptfrenzy.org/]. Created by the founder of NaNoWriMo, Script Frenzy gathers screenwriters from around the world during the month of April with the goal being to write 100 pages toward a screenplay.

All I wanted to do during the month was get some writing done. Even if it were only five pages, I would have been ecstatic, but I finished having written 110 pages.

How did I do that when it seems as if there was no time for it?

Three things helped me find the time to write.

1. I TREATED WRITING AS A TASK. Many of us put writing down on our to-do list, but it becomes an expendable task, meaning if something more important comes along, then writing goes further down the list until it disappears. During the month of April (much like I treat NaNoWriMo’s November), writing became a task, just like putting gas in the car, finishing a project for class, or paying my rent. And because I treated it as such, I felt a responsibility to COMPLETE the task.
2. I TREATED WRITING AS MY ESCAPE. I haven’t written much during my first year of doctoral work, and it has been very unsettling for me. Before April hit, I told myself that writing would be my refuge during this hectic academic month. Whenever I got stressed, whenever I needed to “get away” from academics, I opened up my script outline, opened up Final Draft and wrote bad pages to my screenplay. When I was done taking my mini “vacation,” I was ready to get back to the school work at hand.
3. I TREATED WRITING AS MY ENTERTAINMENT. There are a lot of things I do to keep from doing work…to entertain myself. I get on Second Life and play with my alter ego. I watch TV. I play games on my phone. I play music and dance around until I’m too tired to do any work, LOL. I read. For the month of April, writing became my entertainment. Instead of turning on the TV, I wrote. When I felt the itch to play on Second Life, I wrote. When I had the urge to play music and dance, I played music, chair-danced, and wrote.

In the end, using these avenues to get writing on the page, I nearly completed a whole screenplay in April. And it kept me sane enough to stay on task with all the other things on my plate.

What do you do to keep yourself writing?